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New Commonwealth Space Corps
The New Commonwealth Space Corps was the joint civilian and military organization responsible for the New Commonwealth space program. Founding The New Commonwealth Council was becoming increasingly alarmed by American and Soviet progress in the field of space based technology. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 it was decided that the New Commonwealth needed its own space program to counter the Americans and Soviets. Both Australia and Britain had been looking into building satelites using the Blue Streak ICBM as a launch platform. In 1959 the newly commissioned New Commonwealth Space Corps (NCSC) built on this progress and Woomera in Australia was to become the hub of the New Commonwealth's space activity. Early Launches A test satelite named Pegasus-1 was designed in record breaking time in Canada and shipped to Woomera in August 1959 where a Blue Streak launch vehicle was waiting. The satelite's sole purpose was to prove the concept of using Blue Streak to put satelites in orbit worked and as such featured only a small battery and radio transmitter. On Spetember 1st 1959 Pegasus-1 was launched from Woomera successfully attaining an orbit of 200 miles above the Earth's surface (over 60 miles higher than Sputnik). The project was an overwhelming success and plans were drawn up for further launches using Black Prince ICBMs as addtional launch vehicles. The New Commonwealth's second satelite was Pegasus-2 and this had additional sensors to record more information about the launch process in preperation for more soppisticated launches in the future. Two more Pegasus missions were conducted to fully explore every aspect of launching satelites into space before more sophiticated and expensive projects were undertaken. Hermes Communication Satelites Once the data from the Pegasus program had been corroborated in 1961 it was deemed sufficent to proceed with the next phase of the New Commonwealth space program; communication satelites. Hermes-1 was the first communication satelite produced in the New Commonwealth and was intended for military use in relaying data streams from naval ships operating in the Pacific. Hermes-1 was launched on January 3rd 1962. Hermes-2 was launched on April 5th but the payload module failed to seperate and the satelite was lost. A total of seven Hermes satelites were launched and these served for a total of ten years providing military data and communication relay functions. Civilian versions of Hermes were launched between 1964 and 1968. Manned Missions By 1963 the New Commonwealth Space Corps was still lagging behind its American and Soviet counterparts both of whom had successfully began manned missions. There was a lot of a disagreement among the New Commonwealth about whether it was truly in the best interests of the New Commonwealth to go to the expense of manned missions into space. Eventually the project was given the go-ahead. Royal Patronage With the advent of her subjects travelling into space Queen Elizabeth II granted Royal patronage to the NCSC therefore the organization was renamed the Royal New Commonwealth Space Corps on July 3rd 1963. Category:Space